hey guys welcome back today I'm giving you everything you need to know if you're planning on going backpacking around Europe I love to go backpack around Europe about a year ago it was June 28th of 2022 and it was one of the coolest things I've ever done in my life I had bought a one-way ticket to Spain I didn't know how long I was gonna be there I ended up staying for about four months going over I think seven countries in Western Europe I went to Spain France Italy Switzerland Belgium England and Scotland over that four month time period so most of my knowledge is in Western Europe but a lot of this still applies to Eastern or Central Europe too just the train systems aren't as developed when you get into like the Balkan areas or Greece so it's a little bit different but a lot of the facts are still the same step one you have to pick where you want to go and I don't think you necessarily have to completely plan out your route I know I had a couple places in mind that I really wanted to go to but I didn't exactly know the way that I was going to get there and I was playing planning about two to three probably about three weeks in advance because I was there in High season which is summer so if you are going in the summer time usually June through August you have to plan more in advance but if you're going in off season which is probably like September to may you have a little bit more flexibility with the places that you're booking and where you're going and how far in advance you need to do it because it's not as busy but when picking a place to go I really recommend just going on to Google Flights type in where you're currently located and then in the where you're going to search bar you can put in just Europe in general the whole continent and every flight that's leaving from your town like for me at Chicago to Europe is gonna pop up and you can kind of pick the place that's the cheapest to fly into a lot of times it's going to be places like Paris London or Amsterdam I find that those are usually pretty cheap in relative terms of flying to Europe but just picking the cheapest one to start at traveling within the countries or just to you within Europe in general is so cheap comparatively to coming from the US to go wherever you want to go so once you have that list of a couple places that you want to visit you can start mapping out a tentative route I don't think you should completely plan out your whole trip because you're going to learn so many places once you're there and talk to so many people that you're meeting and they're going to tell you about towns you didn't even know existed and I know I ended up finding out about so many different little small towns or just random places that are more like European people travel destinations compared to U.S people travel destinations once I was there and they ended up being some of my favorite places so come up with your list of roughly where you want to go and be realistic about it I have some people that comment on my videos and they're like I'm going to Europe for 10 days and I want to go to these five countries like are you even planning on seeing things in the country are you just trying to check that Ox off because I usually think it's best if you have only 10 days to go backpacking to do two countries that are touching like they're within super quick distance either that's flight or train ride from each other and then maybe three cities that once again are pretty close together that way you can actually get to enjoy your time there and you're not rushing from one country or one city to the next so once you have that rough idea of the places that you want to go next we're talking where you're gonna stay so personally I stayed in hostels pretty much the whole time that I was solo traveling in Europe hostels are not as scary as they seem they get a bad reputation in the US I don't really know why because hostile culture is amazing and it is the best way to make friends it is the best way to experience this new way of travel and meet all these different people and easily have activities available to you a lot of hostels that you stay at have planned activities every single day that you can sign up for for like 10 euros and then you can go hiking with everyone you can go out to dinner with everyone they'll host trivia nights like they just have fun things always going on and that's how you can easily meet people for cheap when you're saying in hostels you're normally in a hostile dorm room that's just how it is you can also do a private room but honestly if you want to meet people and save money the dorm room is the way to go it's not as scary as it seems it's honestly it's a really interesting experience and it's cool and it's fun and I truly love traveling in hostels but it's just a completely different way of travel than you've probably ever done before you can also stay in airbnbs or hotels obviously those are pretty standard in the U.S too I stayed in a couple airbnbs when I was gone I loved it and I only stayed in two hotels I personally as a Solo Traveler don't like staying in airbnbs or even hotels when I'm by myself because there's not as many people around where is in a hostels you feel a lot more secure because there are people who you've gotten to know and staff that actually maybe not cares about you but they know who you are and they know you exist and so you've got people keeping an eye out for you I always recommend going on a hostile world to look up your hostels that you want to stay at you can type in the city and all the ones in the area will come up there's tons of reviews tons of ratings pictures everything Pro tip is to not book on hostile world you want to look them up there read all the reviews and then you're going to go to the actual hostels website and book directly through the hostel that's probably going to save you a couple dollars a night and a lot of times you can get some perks like free breakfast if you go directly through the hostel and then if you have to change or cancel or do anything with the reservation you're not going through a third party and you're just talking to that hostel directly and it just makes that whole process a lot easier next is all about Transportation I use the europass that is the pass that you can get for the train system within Europe if you are a non-eu citizen and this pass can cost anywhere from like 300 to probably like 800 US dollars depending on the level of pass that you get I think mine was about 500 to be able to take 10 trains over the course of two months they also have unlimited packages or different packages again these numbers are from last summer so I don't know what it's like now but if you're planning on taking a lot of long-haul trains like we're talking cities that are probably at least five hours apart it probably your cheaper option but if you're going to cities that are closer together I recommend busing I know when I went from Brussels to Paris my bus was only like 10 euros which was so cheap and so that made it worth it compared to taking a train and the bus that you usually go through is like Flix bus or at least that's what I used but there is an app called omeo which I used a lot when I was in Europe and that tells you all the different ways you can get from one city to the next so it'll tell you the trains buses shared cars literally any method of transportation that you can think of will be shown on that app and you can compare prices and even book directly through it with the trains in Europe please be mindful of the switches that you have to make and also the time between the train switches so you want to make sure you at least have an hour between your trains because a lot of times the trains run late or things get delayed problems come up with the train and you don't want to miss your connecting train because there were times when I got completely screwed and I ended up being stuck in a town for an extra eight hours because my first train was late and I missed my connecting train for the most part the trains are really nice but do not rely on them to have Wi-Fi because that's something that I expected when I was going is that all the trains were going to have access to Wi-Fi and it was really only maybe 20 of the time that I actually had working Wi-Fi on a train no matter if it even if it said it had Wi-Fi it still probably won't work the other option you can do is flying which I personally don't like as much because of how long the process takes like yes the flight might be a lot shorter than the train ride but you normally have to Uber out to the airport and then you have to go through security and get to the airport a couple hours early and it ends up being just as long as the process as the train would have been and the trains are a lot easier because they're usually in the center of the city not on the outskirts like the airports and you can get to them easily usually you can walk or take public transport and then take the train to your next place that's just a personal decision planes are also great to but remember on a lot of the cheap flights in Europe if your bag is bigger than a carry-on you're gonna have to pay for it whereas trains baggage is completely free next up is currency and anything money related while you're in Europe the European countries you definitely need to look up to see what type of currency they use because not every European country uses the Euro a good bit of them do but not all of them so you need to see what type of currency they use and then you also need to look up the currency exchange rate this is just so that you kind of can keep track of how much money you're spending when I was there last summer it was luckily a one-to-one for the Euro to the US dollar so pretty much every Euro I would spend was like spending one US dollar but then when you go to the UK and that was pounds at that time I think it was a one to like 1.5 so every one pound was a dollar and fifty cents of US dollars so you're spending a little bit more every time you pay than you would have in the Euro I also recommend having cash on you at all times when you're in Europe one it's usually what they take on public transport a lot of the times it's either gonna be coins or money that they want and you're taking the buses around which I really recommend you do and also sometimes restaurants in local markets and stuff will prefer cash over your card and so it's just nice to have a little bit on you especially if you're going anywhere in Eastern Europe compared to Western Europe they use a lot more cash than they do card and you don't need anything crazy I think I would take out about 300 Euro every single time that I went to the ATM which was not often and that would last me like a month and a half I also recommend you look into a travel credit card there's a PSA on this if you're not good with credit cards please do not do this but if you are and you want to start getting into travel hacking and just having a travel credit card in general I really recommend the Chase Sapphire that is the credit card that I use and the reason you use it is one you get like three times the points on any travel purchase you make with that card so you get a lot of bonuses with flights I've only paid for like 20 percent of flights that I've taken this year because I mostly just use all my points on my flights and I get free flights all the time my last flight to Hawaii which would have been about a thousand dollars round trip I just paid for in credit card points and it cost me nothing but what the card is also good for are most travel credit cards that you look up are good for is that when you use them in a different country you don't get charged a fee so a lot of times if you were just to use your normal debit card you would be charged like three percent of whatever the purchase was as an exchange rate fee and when you use a travel credit card you don't get that fee and so if you're gone for a long period of time it's nice because that number does add up if you're just going on a week trip you can probably get away with it it's not that big of a deal but if you're going to be anywhere for an extended period of time it's definitely worth it to look into a travel credit card or just a card in general that does not have those fees the one thing that I didn't have that I wish I did was a card like a Charles Schwab Bank account or one of those other kind of foreign bank accounts where you can pull out money from an ATM with out getting hit with those transaction fees because I know every time I pulled out money from an ATM it ended up costing like an extra fifty dollars in just the exchange rate fees but to make it a little bit cheaper when you are at the ATM make sure you deny their conversion because the ATM's conversion is going to be a lot more expensive than what your base conversion would be so you want the conversion rate to come from your bank instead of the ATM you'll see it when you swipe your card in you go to collect how much cash you want out it's going to say accept this conversion rate or decline this conversion rate you want to decline it and it's still going to give you the money it's just going to have that exchange rate be taken from your bank instead of what the ATM wants if you are planning on staying in Europe for a long time or honestly anywhere for a long time and you want to be able to save some money doing work exchange is a great way to do it I'll do a whole video on this but I went through the organization World Packers and I did two volunteer experiences while I was there so one was at a hostel in Spain for two weeks and the other one was at a bed and breakfast in France for another two weeks and that saved me a month of food in a comedy so there are ways to get around the idea that Europe is super expensive as long as you're willing to put in a little bit of work and do things a little bit non-traditional other ways you can save money are definitely by taking public transport and so that's using the buses whenever you're in a city instead of ubering I know I only ubered like two times and that was if I had like a really early morning planes or flights and the bus systems are relatively easy to figure out or the trans systems or literally any type of public transport in the city and once you figure out the first city pretty much every city after that is similar so it definitely gets easier the longer you're in Europe now we need to talk about your phone and how you're going to be able to have signal to talk to people while you're gone I personally use Verizon as my phone service provider and Verizon unfortunately is like one of the only providers that does not connect with SIM cards so if you put a new sim in your card which a lot of people do when they go to Europe it just does not work with these phones I don't know why I don't know the science behind it that's just what I've heard and everything I've looked up so I got the Verizon travel plan for my phone and I think it was a hundred dollars a month it was like eight gigabytes of data 200 minutes of calling and a thousand incoming texts and a thousand outgoing texts which is not a lot but it was honestly really good for me because I was not on my phone at all for four months unless I was in the hostel attached to Wi-Fi in my bed at night and besides that I just couldn't go on it if you do not get the travel planned through your provider you can do the SIM card route unfortunately I do not have any information about SIM cards in your phone just because I've never personally done it I have heard it's relatively easy and you can get them at airports or at train stations whenever you arrive in a new country but I've never done it myself next topic is the bag that you need to bring I personally had a 55 liter off spray bag it was a backpack it fit all my belongings in it and then I had a 13 liter Offspring daylight pack on my front so I had the big backpack on my back the other one on my front and that's pretty much it for my bag situation if I was to go again though I would force myself to do a 40 liter on my back and still probably keep the 13 on my front just because what I had was still way too much stuff even though it was practically nothing it just gets so annoying when you're moving around so much to be lugging everything around with you and so I know it seems like you don't have anything with you but when you're backpacking you really don't need that much you're going to new cities constantly so wearing the same thing isn't that weird because you're not around any people that would have seen you in the previous outfit and you just kind of start wearing the same things over and over again because everything just gets so jumbled in your bag that you're just taking whatever's off the top and you start to realize that things just aren't that serious and it doesn't really matter what you look like but I personally still like looking cute so I still had cute dresses and cute skirts I would just re-wear them and then you also want the bare minimum for all your toiletries and makeup I can do a whole video talking everything about what to pack for your backpacking trip with actual clothes and shoes and all your toiletries and all the random travel accessories that you would need for your bag and just to have in general so stay tuned for that because I think I actually packed pretty good when I went suitcases are just personally a no-go when you're going to grow up for an extended period of time even if it is a carry-on size when you're in hostels the only option that you have to store your bag is in a locker and you kind of have to sometimes like smush your bag in there and you just wouldn't be able to do that with a true suitcase and so for safety and lock reasons you're gonna want a backpack also because backpacks are a lot easier to lock and become more theft proof than I think a suitcase would be I had locks on every zipper and then you also have a lock for your locker so no one's going to take your belongings I was in hostels for four months like I said and I didn't have one single thing stolen from me other random bags that you may want are a fanny pack or some type of crossbody purse that you can always leave in front of you instead of behind when you're walking around for theft proof reasons and or a tote bag the tote bag comes in such handy especially if you're solo traveling because you'll end up just wanting to bring activities with you so I would always walk around with my journal and my Kindle with me at all times and then I would usually like pick up lunch or go buy something like I would always need a true bigger bag and when I was leaving the hostel for the day I probably wasn't coming back for hours so a tote bag was 100 worth it to fit everything but then it also can double as a beach bag finally this is how much it's going to cost you or how much you should save for your trip I know when I was gone for the four months including my plane ticket I spent roughly nine thousand dollars total which isn't actually that crazy when you think about being gone for four months now I did have the total of one month of volunteering during that time which helped keep my costs low but it still would probably have only been around 11 000 if I didn't I usually say for rule of thumb the best price to save up for and plan for per month for one person is about two thousand five hundred dollars that's enough to where you're not gonna feel stressed of not having enough money and still have a little bit to splurge on something you want to buy or a certain Excursion you want to go on and still be able to eat out sometimes like it's a flexible budget with the 2500 but you can definitely do it for cheaper I know there was some months that I was there that I only spent 1 100 but it also depends on the country you're going to so I would do some research in knowing kind of the cost of living in the countries that you're going to because if you're going to anywhere in the Balkans or somewhere in like Portugal or Spain it's going to be a lot cheaper than if you're going to England just the nature of the game and how things are you just really need to pay attention to kind of the sheep first expensive countries and maybe plan your route accordingly if you know what your budget is staying in hostels is obviously going to keep your price low finding the cheapest flights are going to keep your costs low not eating out all the time is going to keep your costs low if you're staying in hostels they almost always have kitchens and you can make meals and go grocery shopping most of the time people people are not going to steal your food once again I never had anyone steal my food so there are ways to keep this a lot more budget friendly some other random tips I have are one please make sure you download your map of the city that you're going to before you get there there was a time when my train got in in Lake Como into this tiny little town that I was staying in and I had zero signal I only knew the number of the bus that I had to get on and I knew the name of the town and that was it and I had to figure out my way it was the most stressful day of my life I was contemplating everything debating going back to Milan just was completely screwed because I've had forgotten to download my map and I just kind of assumed that I would have signal when I got there and so it's definitely something for your safety that you need to do a lot of people use Google Maps I personally use the app maps.me which is essentially the same thing I just really liked it because it also had hiking trails on there too and it's just the app that I was recommended and I personally loved it so just make sure you download offline apps so that when you get to a city you know where you're going it's pretty much all the knowledge I have on backpacking Europe or at least my quick version of it if there's any specific topics that you don't think I covered please just leave them in the comments box below and I'll get back to you or I'll maybe even make a whole video on it I had the best time of my life it was after I had graduated college so it was kind of my graduation gift to myself that I had been saving up for and planning and it lived up to every expectation that I could have imagined so this is your sign to go backpacking her up if you've been wanting to so I hope you guys found today's video useful about how to go backpacking around Europe and I really hope you booked that ticket and you go because it will be the best time of your life I promise it's worth every single Cent but if you like this video please make sure you like And subscribe down below my content is all about how I travel with my nine to five and traveling in her 20s and navigating this weird time in our lives so if you're interested in more of that please make sure you subscribe and I'll see you guys next Thursday